Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a novel restriction endonuclease SplI and a process for the production of the same.
A restriction endonuclease is generally a deoxyribonuclease which recognizes several specific base sequences in double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (hereinafter referred to as DNA) molecules and cleaves the strands. These restriction endonucleases are useful in studying the structure and function of DNA since they can cleave the strands of a long DNA molecule at specific sites to produce DNA fragments which may be subjected to base sequence analysis. Furthermore they are essential as reagents which are extremely valuable in genetic engineering.
We have studies on a restriction endonuclease, which is extremely valuable in the art as a biochemical reagent as described above, originating from algae which have not been sufficiently studied.